Stylos is the blog of Jeff Riddle, a Reformed Baptist Pastor in North Garden, Virginia. The title "Stylos" is the Greek word for pillar. In 1 Timothy 3:15 Paul urges his readers to consider "how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar (stylos) and ground of the truth."

Saturday, July 04, 2015

Text Note: John 5:3b-4

Image: Excerpt from John 5 in Codex Alexandrinus (see notes in margin on John 5:3-4)

I. The issue:

The modern critical text, and translations based on it, omits
the account of the angel stirring the water in John 5:3b-4. The traditional text, and translations based
on it, includes this passage. Compare translations based on the traditional text (disputed portion
in bold):

KJV
John 5:3 In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt,
withered, waiting for the moving of the
water. 4 For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled
the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was
made whole of whatsoever disease he had.

NKJV
John 5:3 In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed,
waiting for the moving of the water. 4
For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the
water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made
well of whatever disease he had.

II. External Evidence:

Note: We are dealing here with vv. 3b-4 together
but there are some variations, noted below, between vv. 3b and 4 separately
among manuscripts.

The traditional text (including vv. 3b-4) is
supported in general by the following:

Greek
witnesses: A (though NA-28 indicates
that v. 3b is missing in the original but it appears in a corrected hand), C (apparently
includes in a corrected hand), K, L (apparently includes v.4, but missing v. 3b), Gamma, Delta, Theta, Psi,
078, family 1, family 13, 565, 579, 700, 892, 1241, 1424, and the vast Majority
tradition.

Versions: The Vulgate and part of the Old Latin apparently
support the inclusion of v. 3b, while the Old Latin (with minor variations) and
the Clementine Vulgate support the inclusion of v. 4. The traditional text is also supported by the
Syriac Peshitta and the Syriac Harklean and, in part, by the Coptic Bohairic.

Church
Fathers: Of note is the fact that v. 4
is cited in the writings of the Church Father Tertullian (c. 220 AD).

The
modern critical text (omitting vv. 3b-4) is supported by the following:

To
help sort out some of the variations on the inclusion/exclusion of vv. 3b and 4,
according to the NA-28, compare:

Include v. 3b but exclude v. 4

Exclude v. 3b but include v. 4

Greek
codex D

Greek
codex A

Greek
codex W [supplement]

Greek
codex L

Greek
codex 33

Individual
Latin ms. f

Individual
Latin ms. l

Evaluative notes on external evidence:

First,
it is obvious that there has been much textual activity around vv. 3b-4,
indicating serious early controversy over their transmission.

Second,
closer examination of the passage in the online version of Codex Alexandrinus
(p. 45 recto, column 2, lines 13-14) indicates that the NA-28 apparatus notes
may be somewhat misleading regarding vv. 3b-4.
Though some corrections to vv. 3-4 are included in the margin, these
verses seem to be part of the original text of Codex A. See this study of John 5:3-4 in Codex Alexandrinus.

Third,
one might give weight to the fact that two papyri omit vv. 3b-4. This should be tempered, however, by the
following considerations: (a) the
recognition that the papyri evidence, in general, is limited, and it reflects
traditions from only one general geographical area; (b) the weighing of the two
individual papyri cited here. Of p66, in
The Story of the New Testament Text
(SBL, 2010), Robert Hull notes, “The manuscript contains more than 400 singular
readings, nearly half of them the result of carelessness in copying, and most
of them corrected by the scribe himself” (p. 116). Of p75, Hull notes “its text is remarkably
similar to that of Codex Vaticanus; in fact, p75 and B are more closely related
than any other NT manuscripts” p. 117).

Fourth,
the conclusion that must be reached, in the end, is that the exclusion of vv.
3b-4, like so many other points of textual difference between the traditional
and modern texts, rests primarily on the evidence of two codices: Sinaiticus and Vaticanus.

First,
he notes that “a variety of witnesses” add v. 3b, speculating they do so,
“perhaps in order to explain the reference in v. 7 to the troubling of the
water” (p. 209 here and in other references below). He then adds that the reading is lacking in
“the oldest and best witnesses” (citing p 66, p75, Aleph, the original hand of
A, and B) and that it includes “two non-Johannine words” [ekdechesthai and kinesis]. Two questions immediately arise for the
reader: (1) How do we know what the
“oldest and best witnesses” are? And (2)
How do we know what is and is not within the limits of the Johannine
vocabulary?

Second,
with regard to v. 4, Metzger declares definitively that it is a “gloss” whose
“secondary character” is clear in four ways:

(1) It
is absent from “the earliest and best witnesses” (citing again p66, p75, Aleph,
and B, etc.).

(2) He
notes that there are “asterisks or obeli” that “mark the words as spurious in
more than twenty Greek witnesses.”
Note: The manuscripts he lists
here, however, are all relatively late ones:
S, Delta, Pi, 047, 1079, 2174.
Could these marks indicate not that the text is “spurious” (for why then
would the verse have been included?) but an acknowledgement of conflict in textual
transmission?

(3)
“The presence of non-Johannine words or expressions.” He gives these examples: kata
karion, embaino [of going into
the water], ekdechomai [expecting,
awaiting], katechomai [to hold fast,
to hold back], kinesis [movement], tarache [disturbance, stirring], and nosema [disease]. He adds that the last three three words
appear only here in the NT. Again, we
must question how Metzger (or anyone else) is able to define so authoritatively
the limits of Johannine vocabulary. He
also displays here circular reasoning.
For if v. 3b is considered authentic, one these words (kinesis) is definitely Johannine. Is this conceivable for John? Yes, it is.
Compare his limited use of the term “The Twelve” to refer to the twelve
disciples in John 6:67, 70, 71; 20:24.

(4) He
notes that since the passage is missing “in the earliest and best manuscripts”
it “is sometimes difficult to make decisions among alternative readings.” This seems, however, to be more of an
expression of the difficulty of determining the eclectic modern critical text
than an objection to the traditional text.

Edward
F. Hills notes that the disputed passage is cited by Tertullian in a
theological reference to baptism (see The
King James Version Defended, pp. 145-146).
He quotes Tertullian as saying, “Having been washed in the water by the
angel, we are prepared for the Holy Spirit.”
He also notes its citation in Didymus (c. 379 AD) and Chrysostom (c. 390
AD). He notes: “These writers, at least, appear firmly
convinced that John 5:3b-4 was a genuine portion of the New Testament
text.” He adds that the text was also
included in the Diatessaron by Tatian (c. 175 AD), “which also strengthens the
evidence for its genuineness by attesting to its antiquity.”

How
then did the text come to be omitted?
Hills cites a theory by Hilgenfeld and Steck:

These scholars point out that
there was evidently some discussion of the Church during the 2nd
century concerning the existence of this miracle-working pool. Certain early Christians seem to have been
disturbed over the fact that such a pool was no longer to be found at
Jerusalem. Tertullian explained the
absence of this pool by supposing that God had put an end to its curative
powers in order to punish the Jews for their unbelief. However, this answer did not satisfy
everyone, and so various attempts were made to remove the difficulty through
conjectural emendation. In addition to
those documents which omit the whole reading there are others which merely mark
it for omission with asterisks and obels.

Hills
also point out that the entire passage shows evidence of having been tampered
with by “rationalistic scribes” noting as an example the fact that the spelling
of the place name for the pool in v. 2 varies widely. Compare:

Bethesda: A, C, K,
N, etc. (Majority reading)

Bethsaida: p66
(corrected hand), p75, B, etc.

Bethsaidan: p66 (original
hand)

Belzestha: D

Bethzatha: Aleph, (L), 33, and the Old Latin (the
reading adopted by the modern critical text)

Though
Hills’ suggestion is worth consideration, the truth is that the reasons this
passage came into dispute are now lost to us in the mists of the past. One might speculate that it concerned
disputes over the theology of angels (cf. Col 2:18; Rev 19:10; 22:9). We will likely never know why the passage
came into dispute.

In a
commentary published in 1947 Edwyn Hoskyns concluded:

The passage is either a gloss
added to explain v. 7, or it belonged to the original text of the gospel, and
it was struck out in order to avoid giving support to popular pagan practices
connected with sacred pools and streams…. (The
Fourth Gospel [Faber and Faber, 1947]:
p. 265).

Conclusion:

John
5:3b-4 clearly has ancient support. It
was known by Tertullian, appeared in ancient codices like Alexandrinus, and was
adopted by the majority as the traditional reading. Its absence is supported by the two major
heavyweights of modern text criticism:
Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. Though
it is missing in two ancient papyri, one of those (p66) is notorious for it
omissions, and the other (p75) apparently reflects the same stream as that
represented by Vaticanus.

The
arguments against the text by Metzger seem to rely on circular reasoning. He
assumes that Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are “the earliest and best manuscripts”
and then reasons that if the passage does not appear in those witnesses it
cannot be original. Likewise, he assumes
that any less common vocabulary used in disputed passage must necessarily be
“non-Johannine.”

Though
there is no clear reason known to us as to why vv. 3b-4 might have been
omitted, there is also no clear explanation as to why these words might have
been added. The ancient church clearly
accepted 5:3b-4 as authentic, as did the Reformed Fathers. One wonders if the passage’s exclusion in the
modern critical text of the nineteenth century might not have been shaped by an
Enlightenment influenced bias against the supernatural. The comment on John 5:3-4 in The Orthodox Study Bible (based on the
NKJV text of the Psalms and the NT) notes that these verses are “often omitted
from modern English translations,” but adds, “The role of spiritual powers in
the world must never be discounted” (p. 224).

I see
no compelling reason to exclude John 5:3b-4 from consideration as part of the
legitimate text of Scripture.